Category: France

We went to this lovely castle when we were staying in the Loire Valley when our daughter, Samantha, joined us in France in the summer of 2012. The Loire Valley is dotted with beautiful castles, but this was my favorite!

The best part of traveling for me isn’t the cool historical sights or beautiful nature….it’s the people we meet along the journey. This past July, we had just finished a busy nine days of seeing many beautiful towns in Germany and Italy: Dinkelsbuhl, Fussen, Lake Garda, Vicenza, Verona, and Venice. Then we packed up, and drove four hours to stay with our friends Brigitte and Louis, who live in a lovely home at the foot of the Alps, just outside Grenoble, France. We arrived just before sunset, and were treated to delicious home cooked French food with champagne.

Nate was delighted to have a garden to play in!

The next day we just wanted to chill out and hang around the beautiful garden and take in the views all around us.

The front gate

Who needs to go sightseeing when this is out your front gate? Just going for a walk down the street is “sightseeing”. So that’s just what we did: Brigitte, Nate and I went for a walk.

Our street

Just a few doors down, Brigitte’s neighbor has goats, chickens, donkeys, dogs, and rabbits.

Brigitte’s neighbor wasn’t home so we continued on our walk.

What a beautiful place! Brigitte and Louis are very blessed to call this place home! We headed back to their house, and stopped by the neighbor’s house who was now home. Nate got to play on the tractor…..

and pet a donkey…which was quite exciting for a city boy!

We ran into Andy just as we arrived; he was heading out for a bike ride.

This is just outside the front gate.

Brigitte and Louis invited us to eat lunch with them in their garden. They thought we were a little crazy because as the week went on we wanted to spend a large part of it just hanging around their lovely home and garden. Can you blame us?!!

Good food, good cheese, good wine, good company…life is good!

We slept in every day, and rarely left the house before noon. We went for a picnic next to a monastery that was just a short drive away.

We found a shady spot with a view.

The view! We were the only ones having a picnic, so we had it all to ourselves.

We shared the view with these friends:)

The monastery

Just below the monastery.

More stunning views as we headed “home”.

We also enjoyed a couple evenings together with Brigitte and Louis’ next-door neighbors, with more great French cuisine and wine. We had a great time talking, playing pool, and enjoying French beverages of all sorts, late into the night:) Andy and Louis relaxed the next day, watching the Tour de France on TV.

The summer “dining room”.

All meals included French wine, and were followed by French cheese. My favorite quote (from Brigitte’s father, I think) I heard was ” a meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman with one eye!”

While staying with Brigitte and Louis we also did day trips to Grenoble, Annecy and Mont Blanc. I’ll post photos in future blog posts.

It was difficult to say good-bye to our wonderful hosts and leave this beautiful home.

If you get the chance to visit this part of France, take it! You definitely won’t regret it!! Thank you, Brigitte and Louis for such wonderful hospitality!

The D-Day invasion of Normandy took place on June 6th, 1944. Utah Beach was the code name for the westernmost of the Allied landing beaches. If you continued walking down the beach, you would eventually arrive at Omaha Beach, which saw the heaviest casualties of American soldiers (dramatized in the first scene of Saving Private Ryan). It was a sobering experience to walk on this beach, to imagine the hundreds of landing craft, and to remember the brave young soldiers who risked and gave their lives on the beaches of Normandy.

Annecy is one of the most beautiful historic and popular resort towns of the French Alps. The scenery around Annecy is stunning! It is surrounded by spectacular mountains, located on the banks of a sparkling turquoise lake. We spent a lovely day here in July 2013.

Originally I had planned to get out a post every day to keep up with our road trip adventures. I failed miserably, as my last post was day eight…and I think now it’s day twenty-two! We were having too much fun to keep up with that goal. No worries! I’ll continue posting as time permits.

My blog countdown says I’ve got 5 hours to go on our European road trip. It has been a blast!! We finished our trip with a long, but fun driving day through four countries.

Yesterday we left the lovely home and friends we were staying with just outside Caen in Normandy, France.

Our first evening in our friends’ backyard.

We drove to Rouen, where we had a quick lunch and a quick sightseeing/shopping trip.

Quick lunch included ice cream!

Andy and Nate went off to see the cathedral to avoid shopping:)

After an unsuccessful shopping trip I met up with the boys at Rouen’s beautiful cathedral.

Just one of its towers!

The inside was beautiful.

Next, we went to see where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

The memorial to Joan of Arc. There’s a strange looking church next to it, but we didn’t go inside.

This is the actual spot, as you can see by the sign.

Next we sped off toward our destination: Raeren, Belgium…a little town on the border of Germany. We chose it because it was 1. cheap and 2. only an hour’s drive to Cologne, where we are catching our flight back to Prague.

We brought along our usual picnic lunch: baguette, meat, cheese, lettuce, peppers and fruit. Since we had lunch in Rouen, we decided to stop along the way and have an evening picnic.

Since it was so close, we said, “Let’s have our picnic in the Netherlands.” So we did a quick detour, crossed the border into the Netherlands (only a sign) and looked for a place for a picnic.

We found a lovely rural town, with peaceful fields and cows:)

We drove into the little town; I think it was called Mesch.

We continued to look for a park or field to have our park in. The town was so small, everyone was looking at us creeping by in our car!! Who are these outsiders??!!

The town was a victim of my drive-by shooting…photos of their cute town!

We actually found what looked to be a public bench, and we were about to pull over to have our picnic there when two firetrucks pulled up twenty feet from the bench and they all piled out….we are not quite sure why! It didn’t seem to be an emergency, and they were cleaning up their equipment. So we drove on.

So we ended up in another little town nearby and parked next to this field.

Picnic in a field!

We got to frolic briefly in the field before a light rain chased us back into the car to finish our picnic indoors:(

So we finished up and drove on to our destination: a very cheap budget hotel in Raeren, Belgium.

Leaving our rural adventure in the Netherlands.

We sped by this sign and came around to get a photo…Limburger…get it?

Good-bye Netherlands! It was a lovely 55 minutes!

No matter our picnic got rained out…we enjoyed the rainbow while discussing leprechauns and pots of gold with Nate!

Our budget hotel happened to be on a road that our GPS didn’t recognize…a highway frontage road. We saw a tiny sign for it as we passed the offramp to discover….

We were now in Germany! Only for about five minutes, while we got off at the next offramp and turned around to find our hotel back in Belgium!

France, Belgium, Netherlands, back to Belgium, five minutes in Germany, back to Belgium…sleep in our budget hotel. We woke up, packed up, and drove an hour to Cologne airport, where we are waiting for our flight to Prague. That’s four countries in one day…or five in about 30 hours, once we arrive “home” in Prague tonight. It has been an excellent trip!

Now I need to reset the blog trip-ometer..six days until we leave for Israel and Palestine!

My family and I just had a wonderful six days in Paris. We got to see most of the important sights, but not all. There is always more to see of Paris, for the next trip! So here are some things we learned, to pass on to other travelers who visit this lovely city. Mind you, these tips are for travelers on a budget. We are teachers, so we travel in comfort, but not in luxury!

1. Don’t book pre-packaged tours!

There is no need for tours, not even the “Hop-on, hop-off” bus. Paris’ metro system is excellent. There is a metro stop close to all of the famous (and not so famous) sights of Paris. You just need to spend a little time to figure out the metro map.

No caption needed:)

2. Buy an unlimited public transportation travel pass (a car in Paris is NOT recommended)!

They are good for metro, buses and RER network trains.

There are four choices: Navigo Decouverte Pass, Paris Visite Pass, and a carnet (book) of ten tickets, or single tickets for 1 Euro 50.

The Navigo Decouverte is the least expensive. The catch is that it starts on Monday and ends at midnight on Sunday. It makes financial sense if you arrive between Monday and Wednesday, but not if you arrive in the second half of the week. You will need a 1 X 1.2” passport style photo (can be purchased at the airport or most metro stations in one of the automated booths for 5 Euros). Then you go to the ticket window and purchase the pass (5 Euros) and load it with a week of credit. The pass is good for ten years, so if you return to Paris you can add more credit on it and go. Be sure to ask for a Navigo Decouverte, not just a “Navigo” pass. The “Navigo” pass is only for residents, whereas the Navigo Decouverte is for any adult. If you are traveling with children, you will need to buy them a child’s Paris Visite card.

If you plan to use public transport to and from the airport, and if you plan to visit Versailles, it is best to purchase the Navigo Decouverte that covers zones 1-5. Round trip to the airport (20 Euros) and to Versailles (12 Euros), and the pass is only 33 Euros.

The Paris Visite Card can be purchased for 1, 2, 3 or 5 days. The price varies depending on how many zones you want. If you want it to cover Versailles and the airport, it is best to get zones 1-5.

Eating out in Paris is expensive, especially for those who earn in dollars or other non-euro currencies. Stop at the local market to buy a fresh baguette, cheese, sandwich meat, fruit, and a bottle of water. Bring along a knife of some sort to slice the cheese and fruit. There are dozens of lovely places for a picnic in Paris!

My French friend Nathalie showed us around on our first evening in Paris. Yes, that’s the Cathedral of Notre Dame!

4. See the Louvre for free or for a discounted price.

The Louvre is free the first Sunday of the month. It is discounted for adults, and free for anyone under age 26 on Friday evenings after 6pm.

Our eighteen year old daughter, Samantha, offered to babysit her seven year old brother, and we took her up on it! We arrived at Bateaux Mouches around 10:30pm (It doesn’t get dark until 10 pm in the summer). Paris by night is magical!! There was commentary in six languages: French, English, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. We got to see many of the places we hadn’t been able to see yet. In retrospect I would do the cruise at the beginning of our stay, because you cruise past amazing sights you could plan to go see in the following days.

We didn’t, and it was horribly crowded. Take the RER train: it is a short, pleasant ten-minute walk to the palace from the train station. Once you arrive, divide and conquer, if you have two or more in your party. Send one person to stand in the massive line to buy tickets (or better yet, buy them online ahead of time, or at the ticket shop across from the train station). The other person can wait in the massive line to get into the palace.

The Hall of Mirrors!

7. HIDDEN GEM: Take a day trip to Chartres!

I am a Lonely Planet Guidebook junkie, but all it told me that was worth seeing was the magnificent 13th century cathedral. Wrong! Chartres is a lovely medieval city, perfect for strolling the quiet streets and it is oh-so photogenic. Go to the tourism office and ask for their free city map: it has an easy-to-follow walking tour. Discover more medieval churches, quaint houses with flower boxes, a canal, and more! Best of all, it wasn’t mobbed with tourists. We found a great place to eat with reasonable prices, right opposite the cathedral (thanks Lonely Planet). It is called Café Serpente.